It's not fulfilling, that's why I assumed he's looking for other work. But the person I replied to has added that this job requires a lot of study to get into - which means he would have to accept that study as a sunk cost.
Sorry, that was sarcasm. You were replying to someone that thought people worked crappy jobs because of some other reason besides they literally can't get anything better. Kind of mind-blowing that someone could delude themselves to the point where they can believe folks work miserable jobs for any reason other than trying not to go broke.
As usual life is more complex than any idealistic simplification - I do not believe thath you can sum up his situation in one sentence.
But it would be probably a lot easier on him if he did it becesue it kept him fed (that would at least give him feeling of necessity).
The story of his tragedy began when he was finishing highschool and could not decide what to do with himself. He literally had no idea about future, so our father, a legal council of 30 years, choose for him - he paid for five year law degree. And after my brother finished the university, he still did not have any idea what to do, so my father forced him to take law application (I'm not sure how you translate this into english - in my country lawyers are legaly obliged to take additional high level degree after law degree to specialize in being legal council, judge, prosecutor or bailiff).
There are yearly limits of applicants in my country and since my brother was quite bad at this whole law stuff (once again - this was not his thing, it was choosen for him) he could not get legal council application, so the father forced him to choose the only that left, the one that no one else wanted to do - bailiff application.
So he did it and after two years of hard work he finished the application with bailiff title but without bailif practice (which is also limited here in Poland - you are literally nominated by the government to do this here, you are legaly forbiden to practice on your own without the nomination).
Not having government nomination he had to work in local bailiff office (which was only possible because our father used to know some people) - once again this was not his own idea (he had no agancy of his own - from his perpective he would be glad to just sit and play games whole day).
He worked there for five years, and the stuff he did, the people he met, the clients he had to handle, broke him. After office was closed due to his boss retiremen he could not get another job, because once again he was psychically devastated, and people who interviewed him could sense this. And for last few years he just lives with our parents and goes to thereapy and tries to gather what left of his life together.
And the tragic part of all this if you look at cost of his education it would probably be a net gain for society, my parents, and my brother to just forget this whole law degree, bayliff application and few years of work at office and just lay down and play video games.
Each time I think about all this forced idealistic stuff where we are all supposed to find purpose in jobs, because jobs are good (TM), I think about my brother and his wasted life.
To warap this up, I just remembered a quote from song by Polish artist "Kazik" about steelworks worker who wasted his life in job in one of polish factories that were bankrupt from the get go (as the whole communistic system was also):
"Cała jego ciężka praca, wszystko było c**a warte
Gdyby leżał całe życie, mniejszą czyniłby on stratę"
Which, according to ChatGPT, can be loosely translated to:
"His entire hard work, everything was worth s**.
If he lay his whole life, he would make a smaller loss to me."
While not a positive tale, I think the the point you are trying to make is more about coercion/compulsion (i.e. generally what you see as a lack of agency), than it is about specific things like poor parenting (which is also very common).
Also, arguably if regulation wasn't so draconian the requirements wouldn't necessarily be so high, and if debt wasn't so easily available to pay for it, it would be cheaper, and more opportunities would be available. Overregulation can be a stifling thing.
This should not be interpreted as a history about bad parenting - our father meant well. He wanted to give fighting chance to my brother in our brutal society the only way he known how and my brother really did not had any idea what to do with his life and was totally passive.
This can be read as a story about overregulation, but in this context I believe it only exacerbated the real problem.
I think that this all is more a story about our society pressure for everyone to be sucessful and have ever growing social status and material posessions.
It would be nice if somehow there was a place for people like my brother to be himself and not be a failure in game of life because he cannot handle the pressures and really does not want to do more than playing games and doing some simple job to sustain this (and this is whole other story - at this moment he is not able to find any job, because our capitalistic system does not have idea what to do with people like him).
Well, almost all fathers mean well and by that point I mean, you can mean well, and still have poor outcomes (i.e. be bad at parenting).
Mine certainly did, but he still ended up using the money set aside for my college education to buy a Porsche and then sell it at a complete loss years later. He meant well because he thought of it as an investment, but it really wasn't. He believed it though, even though any reasonable person would not classify that as an investment.
As for playing games and not being able to find jobs. There's something to be said for creating a livable future which almost every parent today has failed.
There's a growing body of research that the number of jobs today that would normally have been available during critical time periods were reduced, where older workers, who were more productive because of their experience, ended up taking positions that would normally be held by people developing entry-level skills in careers when they couldn't find the skilled jobs they'd trained for.
In the book, 'The Pinch'; this references a lot of material and is discussed in great detail. Its arguably much more difficult today to get by than it has ever been; and its been driven by changes that were largely outside the current generations control (political power is supposed to transfer every 20 years, but in many places hasn't and is still dominated in majority by the boomer generation).
As for not being able to find a job, that has more to do with the jobs not being available; and potentially other ways monopolistic behavior have created for limiting the job pools to drive wages down.
This behavior is actually a common trend in capitalism when wages fall below certain key thresholds; and I don't mean any specific amount of wages, but the cost of living (in purchasing power) and mobility. It historically has kept to a ratio, but fiat has cause this to deviate like any great ponzi creating this disadvantaged environment today (which was predictable).
You also see these issues in any highly regulated society like in China with the Bailan (摆烂), let it rot movement. Yes its socialist, but the difference between capitalism and socialism when both have high regulation is almost negligible. Socialism relies on exploitative labor force, and elements of a centralized power structure, and lack of property rights; they also have concentrated business sectors (oligopoly) in terms of the means of production.
The main difference between the two is the division of labor, which breaks down under heavy regulation and lack of price discovery/stable store of value.
Ironically, if you have no hope of being able to do any of the major life milestones you're taught at a young age, you get your enjoyment where you can; and limit suffering.
Capitalism knows what they need to do (get out of people's way), but they don't do it because it would involve ceding power and control.
This has happened before, just not on such a global scale; and its fairly predictable what happens next (given a certain level of study in historic subjects).
Thank you for posting this. I think there must be even more back story but of course you are not obligated to share it.
I am astonished it takes two years of study to be a bailiff in Poland. As I understand it the job requires a basic understand of a very narrow area of law, plus the 'soft skills' to avoid escalating difficult situations into violent ones. Is the long study some kind of gatekeeping?
I have rahther limited knowledge on why this occupation is so regulated here - but the regulation is rather brutal and encoded into law. Here you can see law (bill?) on court bailiffs applicants:
Two first points of article 66 regulates maximum number of yearly applicants (which cannot be bigger than 15% of current count of bailiffs). And first point of article 93 sets the study length at two years. I also forgot that my brother had to do additional obligatory two year practice after this two year study (as "assesor komorniczy" - this is also regulated in article 11 of bill mentioned above).
The rationalization behind it all seems to be that being court bailiff gives you quite large amount of power and potential for earning lots of money eventually - if they (the government) will let you at some point start your own practice/office the money will start pouring in (you get a percent from each confiscation! most old bailiffs becomes millionairs eventually).
My brother never got to this point - he was at the lowest possible position, doing all dirty work, earning a little bit above national minimum wage, and then he burned out.
As as side note - I work in IT, and each time I feel burned out, I remember my brother and this somehow puts into perspective what does it actually mean to be burned down (this of course does not mean that there are no real problems with overworking, work-life balance and depression in IT industry, but still - we have it really good).
